Bats have been seen occasionally in Otatara in recent years. These must have been long-tailed bats, as New Zealand’s only other bat species - short-tailed bats - are only found deep in native bush in places like Fiordland and on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island.
Long-tailed bats are native to New Zealand. Their main known populations in Southland are in the Catlins and Fiordland, but they travel long distances as they travel from one roost tree to another and forage for food, so we may spot one from time to time passing through Otatara.
The best time for spotting bats is around dusk on a warm, still evening when there are plenty of flying insects around for them to hunt. Dawn can be a good time too, if you’re an early riser ! You are most likely to find them on bush edges and along lines of trees on fence lines or beside creeks.
Bats hunt using echo location - they send out ultrasonic sound pulses (too high-pitched for people to hear) that bounce off flying insects - just like ships hunting for submarines in movies.The Otatara Landcare Group now has an ultrasonic detector: a small handheld black box which scans for these bat sounds and converts them to audible clicks so you can tell when bats are hunting nearby.
If you’d like to borrow the bat detector to give it a try, or would like to join in with a small group of people going out on an evening bat hunt, contact Geoff at Enable JavaScript to view protected content. . Geoff is also interested in sightings of bats in Otatara, whether recently or years ago.
For more information, there is a good article at https://thisnzlife.co.nz/secret-life-new-zealands-bats/ and a short video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO5INN8qO0A&feature=youtu.be